Emergent Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers - ECEZero2Three ...

© Dena Bawinkel
We wanted all the
children to know that
there could be a positive
aspect to whatever
they might bring to the
classroom.
To help her learn appropriate touching, I suggested ways of touching other
children that wouldn’t hurt. I’d say, for example, “Should we ask Josh if you can
touch his arm?” If Josh said yes, she would touch his arm gently. Then I would
perhaps suggest, “Let’s ask him if you can touch his hair.”
We also worked with the child on being able to predict how another child
might react to a pinch rather than a gentle touch. I’d say something like, “I
remember yesterday you pinched Josh, and he screamed. Remember how he
screamed? I also remember when you touched his arm gently, and he smiled.
Let’s try touching him gently again.” I even tied a discussion of pinching into
circle time. Using two dolls as props, I told a story about how one of the dolls
had pinched the other. We then discussed ways the dolls could learn to interact
with each other.
To address the child’s second set of questions—about what she can do with
her thumb and her index finger—we not only offered traditional pinching materials
like playdough but also introduced something we called “pinching socks.”
We strung a piece of twine along a wall at child’s-eye level and tied on a number
of socks filled with various materials (sand, crinkly paper, cotton balls, pebbles,
and marbles). We called them pinching socks because we wanted to lessen the
child’s feeling bad about her need to pinch. We wanted all the children to know
that there could be a positive aspect to whatever they might bring to the classroom.
The children really loved the pinching socks and would repeatedly pinch
them, feeling the different textures and hearing the different sounds they made.
I hope the children learned that together we can figure out behaviors.
Hopefully this child feels that we honored her needs. We saw her interest in
getting to know the other children, and we helped her learn some skills she
could use to develop friendships. We also gave her opportunities to pinch in
ways that wouldn’t hurt others.
Exploring holes safely
Bonnie Aldridge, Master Teacher
We had planted pumpkins in our schoolyard, and one
morning we discovered a gopher hole in the pumpkin patch.
We talked about who lived in the hole, and one boy stuck his
hand in the hole. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with that
because a gopher might bite him. He addressed the danger
on his own by finding a wooden spoon and sticking the
handle of the spoon down the hole. I started to wonder if the
gopher might be irritated by the intrusion, so I asked the
child if he would be interested in walking around the yard
with me to see how many other holes we could find. We had
a marvelous time looking for holes.
The boy found many other kinds of holes that interested
him. In the sandbox, he put his spoon handle into plastic
cups, jiggling it around and hitting the bottom and sides of
the cup. Some other children had popped the faucet off a
plastic sink in the sandbox, and he discovered that hole. He
stuck his spoon handle inside and tapped against the sides,
but this time no matter how far he lowered the spoon, he
could not feel the bottom. He discovered a vent into another
room and found that if he played with the angle of the
spoon, he could push it into the vent further. He wandered
over to a door and tried to see if the handle of the spoon
would fit inside the lock. He pushed, changed angles, and
Beyond the Journal • Young Children on the Web • July 2006 3